The game is FREE, so if you happen to have a windows phone, go try it out!

Step in the role of a village shaman. Your goal is to protect your village's women from the evil pirate horde, as they invade your island and try to pillage and plunder whatever they can! Use your shamanic powers, defy the gravity and throw your enemies to the skies and empower yourself with elements as you make your last stand.

So looking some feedback of the graphics. I'm thinking that the sky should be more blue and the parallax would need some more saturation maybe. Also the scale in the parallax background is off, since that's just placeholder version.It's also missing the shaman graphics, who will be sitting on the totem and a "score" from the upright corner. Otherwise it pretty much currently has everything you'll see during your gameplay.

So we have three different enemy types.normal one, that you can just toss in the air.Skinny one with the moustache, that now and then dodges your finger.And a big one, that you need to double tap before you can toss him.

We'll also add some collectibles, that you can tap to gain extra score

We also spoke today about special abilities, that we'll most like have time to implement. Like flood/tsunami that pushes the pirates back to their starting point. Earthquake, that momentarily stuns the pirates. And Rum barrel, that in sort of gives you extra live because the pirates rather take the Rum back to their ship.

Some updates for today.We added multi touch. which is a nice little extra, even tho it really doesn't have that much effect on the gameplay. Also fixed and polished some parts of the game code. Oh yeah, we use C# and XNA for the game. Next we'll go into the score system and finish up menus.

I fixed few animations. I'm kinda struggling with the menus. Not really good at those, so been looking at a lot of references, So hopefully I'll get something good done. Also been working for a trailer, which will most likely be on youtube end of this month. Any tips about where I should send the link to the trailer to get publicity? (Been reading those different marketing topics here already, which have been really useful!)

We currently use this kinda retro flicking death animation. But I guess we need to playtest that a bit, just to know if it causes any irritation, played on the mobilescreen. Since there's quite a lot of enemies.

And we'll get more music for the game next week, if I'm correct. And then our sound guys will dig into the sound effects.

MOST IMPORTANT PART!We are thinking about the name for the game, currently our best choices are:Toss the piratesfling the piratespirates and booty

Since we tought that the word "boobies" wouldn't really give the right image of the game. So if you have ANY ideas for a name, please tell us! We need your help!

Hi!Some status update. We got some playtesting done. (we only got like 5 players who hadn't played it before, and they played it for like 2h).Most didn't even realize the flickering, so I guess it's ok. Most found it a quite natural. Got some feedback about the lack of content, which is quite true. But we still have enough time to add more, like the special powers. We also took the level-mode into a serious consideration. We currently had just one difficulty yet there was like major score differences, so it shows enough variation depending the player, for the survival to be highscore driven.

The art style got positive feedback. Which gives me more strenght to keep it up and make it even better. We'll update a gameplay video soon to youtube. (Monday most likely)

And the name we decided is "Buccaneer Bombardment" and our development team is called "Nice to have feature". Yay.

Personally don't really see that many different type of Male characters in video games either. Not against Feminism, or against women and their right in any way. But most of male are also characterized as muscular, brave, intelligent, action-based etc. (in other words like some superhero). Which gives young males, who also are affected by the media, video games and such, quite a level to try to achieve. Which causes pressure. I haven't studied this area that much, so I maybe wrong. But mostly game characters are ridiculous stereoptypes. Which makes them recognizeable.

Our game idea required something living for the pirates to steal, so that it would also move back to the village while being saved. So the main focus is not in the women, but in the gamplay, tossing pirates into the sky.

I really hope no one is truely hurt by this. And at least women I have showed the game, didn't really bother about the fact that they were women whom you were protecting.

"The main focus is not the women", but the thread title is "Pirates and Boobies" and has a GIF of a pair of jiggling boobs as the very first thing? Also, saying that men in video games are portrayed as "muscular, brave, intelligent, action-based" as a counter-argument to women being portrayed as passive sexualized objects that need rescuing is pretty mind-boggling. Don't you see how the former is mostly positive traits, whereas the latter aren't?

Look, I'm not really trying to rag on you or anything. I just think it's pretty lazy and stereotypical game design. You needed something living for the pirates to steal. How about domesticated animals or babies? They would at least be unable to defend themselves. Or do a Spelunky and go with pugs!

I guess that this topic is now on quite a wrong track, but I guess that ok.I was just saying that men are also quite stereotypical in games. And we are seriously not trying to offend anyone. Plus we have no indication of rape anywhere, the pirates might as well try to steal the women to be their cooks. And as you see, I used stereotype here also, about women and cooking.

And the pirates and boobies was just a working title. Sort of a joke. But I mean, I'm a guy and I like boobies. I'm not afraid or shamed to admit it, and I see nothing wrong in it. And our pirates like boobies and I think that it's fine. I think it's quite naive not to consider sexuality as a part of our nature. I mean, since when has "being sexy" become a negative thing? I just think that it's silly, since the whole game is quite simple and silly.

I do see that portraying women as objects is wrong, since everyone has their rights and all. We could have used something else, but the setting here is so simple that everyone understands it. Since we use stereotypes, which some of you may find lazy or unimaginative. I mostly don't even see stereotypes as a negative thing. I think we chose women because it was the the simplest choice, since the game doesn't really try to deliver any serious message. It's just simple and fun to play.

I'm not taking any of your comments as a bad thing. I actually like this conversation, since I never had these thoughts about these design choices.

I'm going to be brief because there are people who can explain much better than I could about why this type of portrayal of women is a bad thing. Just because you are not misogynistic doesn't mean you are not actively promoting misogyny.

"Plus we have no indication of rape anywhere, the pirates might as well try to steal the women to be their cooks." "You play as a shaman who tries to protect his villagers (babes) from lustful pirates." So "It's not rape!" is the new "It's not blood" then? Stereotypes or not, everything here is promoting a negative view of women. Like I said before, I'm not the best person to explain this, do yourself a favor and read up on Rape Culture. Here is a good place to start: http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/rape-culture-in-gaming/.

There's a reason Spelunky has pugs as an optional Damsel in distress, and it's not variety. Once you understand that reason, you'll understand what's wrong here.

It's not inherently negative. But here's the thing: You mentioned male video game characters stereotypically being portrayed as "strong and muscular". Now how is this different from women being portrayed as "sexy", you might ask? A strong and muscular man can use his strength to defend himself, traverse environments, have higher stamina, and so on. A sexy woman has an appearance that men likes. That's it. Maybe she can use her good looks to seduce men as a gameplay mechanic. But that's it. She's either a passive object that's nice to look at, or she can sexually tease male characters and male gamers.

Also, there is greater variety in the depiction of male characters in video games. To claim otherwise is to deny the facts that are staring you right in the face. Just look at your own game. The women all look alike: thin, long hair and big boobs. But there are at least three different types of male characters in just one of your screenshots. And that's not even counting the invisible shaman that the player controls. I doubt he's strong and muscular.

I don't think anyone is accusing you of being a misogynist or consciously trying to hurt anyone. But these things can be so deep-rooted in (gamer/male) culture that we sometimes need a wakeup call to actually realize what's going on.

I love Mad Men and that show's portrayal of male/female relations (especially in the earlier seasons). I laugh at how the guys treat the women of the company or their wives. Because it's such a relic of the past that it seems almost unfathomable that this was at one point considered acceptable behavior. This game sorta feels like a relic of the 50's in that regard. You could maybe have played this up and made the game feel like a parody of that period. But you're not.

Also, apparently your original title for this game was "Protect your Women!"? Christ.

Welcome to 2012. Putting aside what everyone else is saying, I'll bring up the first thing I noticed. This looks like every other generic vector game. I would absolutely not touch this game based on the graphics alone. While I'm not trying to be overly harsh, this is something to keep in mind when making a game you want other people to play. I'd recommend as a starting point, not relying so much on cheap paper dolling for animation, instead opting out for hand drawn animation.

In the long run though, my opinion probably won't matter because (from my understanding) casuals are more attracted to cheesy vector art, but most artists will look at this and get turned off.

Welcome to 2012. Putting aside what everyone else is saying, I'll bring up the first thing I noticed. This looks like every other generic vector game. I would absolutely not touch this game based on the graphics alone. While I'm not trying to be overly harsh, this is something to keep in mind when making a game you want other people to play. I'd recommend as a starting point, not relying so much on cheap paper dolling for animation, instead opting out for hand drawn animation.

In the long run though, my opinion probably won't matter because (from my understanding) casuals are more attracted to cheesy vector art, but most artists will look at this and get turned off.

Thank for the feedback. Our reference games were mostly popular casual games on facebook and some mobile games, so I see your point. I personally find that the animations kinda fit the characters, since they have no joints, and it was the fastest way to do them really. We don't have that much time on our hands, so we had to make choices like this.

Reading that "Rape culture" post now. Hadn't even heard of thing like this before, so it's seem like a interesting thing to dig into. I'm not the kind of person who usually thinks about these stuff, so might open my eyes.

And we are still in quite a early state, so we don't have multiple woman characters yet. We were thinking of two or three, which would also probably have different effect on the gameplay, but we'll need to focus on the basics first and then add more content. We seriously didn't plan the setting that much, or think that it would have this kind of impact. We just thought that it would be silly.

And some update. We had a reporter visit us couple days ago, since she was making a article about a Game Co-op we are part of, and she was interested and liked our game. Took some shots of the game and of us making it. Nothing world wide, but I guess even small publicity is always good.

I'm going to be brief because there are people who can explain much better than I could about why this type of portrayal of women is a bad thing. Just because you are not misogynistic doesn't mean you are not actively promoting misogyny.

"Plus we have no indication of rape anywhere, the pirates might as well try to steal the women to be their cooks." "You play as a shaman who tries to protect his villagers (babes) from lustful pirates." So "It's not rape!" is the new "It's not blood" then? Stereotypes or not, everything here is promoting a negative view of women. Like I said before, I'm not the best person to explain this, do yourself a favor and read up on Rape Culture. Here is a good place to start: http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/rape-culture-in-gaming/.

There's a reason Spelunky has pugs as an optional Damsel in distress, and it's not variety. Once you understand that reason, you'll understand what's wrong here.

After reading the rape culture essay and other post about the matter, I still don't completely see that point in how our game promotes negative view of women. Is it the fact, that in this case, they can't protect themselves from the pirates? Or the possible indication of rape, which I'm not admitting nor promoting? If it's ok, I'd like to hear more about your opinions.

I also feel that if the sex roles would have been other way around, we may not be having this conversation. Would we?

I'm aware of some hypersexuality in video games. But I sincerely feel that our game doesn't represent that. The current female character has quite big breasts due to the fact that the character is quite small on the screen, so we needed to female characters silhouette to be recognizable also, due to the actually rather fast paced gameplay. And the females are indicated to be target of the pirates not for the player.

And in the end. Our game is about killing (in this case male) pirates. No one has yet said anything about violence and killing in video games.

I get the feeling you're being intentionally obtuse to take advantage of this tiny bit of "controversy" for attention's sake, now. Because if you really can't see the obvious points being presented here, you're either deep in denial or just plain ol' dumb. And stop trying to pretend like the pirates aren't going to rape the women. They're "lustful" and "have been sailing the seas for too long with an all male crew". Your words.

I get the feeling you're being intentionally obtuse to take advantage of this tiny bit of "controversy" for attention's sake, now.

Then stop giving this thread attention, Christian. That way I won't have to reply to you and bump this thread further. Likewise someone won't have to reply to me and whoops, suddenly we're at fifty pages. This is a mediocre looking game with a non-existent story, so maybe we can all just accept that, move on and not make this a giant feminism issue?

If you feel like deleting your post, then I'd be happy to delete this one and then we can both stop bumping this until the next idiot brings this back up.

I get the feeling you're being intentionally obtuse to take advantage of this tiny bit of "controversy" for attention's sake, now. Because if you really can't see the obvious points being presented here, you're either deep in denial or just plain ol' dumb. And stop trying to pretend like the pirates aren't going to rape the women. They're "lustful" and "have been sailing the seas for too long with an all male crew". Your words.

I also feel that if the sex roles would have been other way around, we may not be having this conversation. Would we?

If you weren't presenting women in a stereotypical and demeaning manner, then no, we wouldn't be complaining about how you present women in a stereotypical and demeaning manner. Duh.

And with that, I'm out of this thread.

I did admit that it's stereotypical. But I don't see that anyhow degrading. And no I'm not into the attention. I was just actually curious, what was the actual thing you and other found to be the thing that gave a negative view on women?

Neither was I the one who spoke of raping. Just stealing the women. And that wasn't my questions. I asked is it the thought of having rape in a game, that caused some of this? But this is all just feedback to us. Now we know that we'll maybe have tone down some elements in the game.

And I do find it rather odd, that you may say your mind about the matter in which I response with my own and maybe ask to hear more, and you tell that I'm dumb or in denial. But still, nothing personal.

---Edited---

And it's ok for me, if we drop the issue, I just thought that the forums are for open discussion. And I did appreciate your feedback on the visuals Kramlack. And no we do not have basicly any story in the game, so you are right in that also. Would you consider that it would need some sort of back story?

Controversy or no, I'm going to continue to post because it is important that people have this discussion even if it does give them publicity.

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I also feel that if the sex roles would have been other way around, we may not be having this conversation. Would we?

But they aren't are they?

I'm sure someone could say this better than me and in fewer words, but here goes: You are using simple ingrained cultural symbols to communicate to the player goals and mechanics. Of cause, this is basic game design so I have no problem with that, however you must choose your symbols carefully as every use in culture entrenches that symbol, and makes it more attractive for further use. The symbol you have chosen for use as the basic hostage role is the 'Damsel in distress' symbol, something that communicates to the player that 'this person needs saving'. Reversing gender would not be as effective to the audience, as the 'Damsel in distress' symbol is already embedded in popular culture to the point where simply placing a woman in a hostage situation implies helplessness, whereas a 'Helpless Man' symbol requires further work. If they were male, they would have to be bound or otherwise visibly incapacitated for you to communicate helplessness to the player.

In essence, you are using the marginalization of women as a means for lazy design. By allowing this symbol to perpetuate, you are effectively feeding the player damaging and false information. And we are what we eat.